Bluffton facility accredited for breast MRI

Sarita Chourey

Sunday

Sep 25, 2011 at 12:14 AM

CORRECTIONDue to inaccurate information provided by a spokesman for the American College of Radiology, the totals provided in a Sept. 25 story about breast MRI accreditation were wrong. There are four accredited breast MRI providers in Georgia, with none located in Savannah, and two in South Carolina.

Beaufort County is now home to one of the region's few accredited breast MRI cancer -detection programs, a development that may position it as a destination for a type of care that is expected to grow in demand.

"We are thrilled to announce today that we are now the first and only MRI provider in the Bluffton-Hilton Head-Savannah region accredited by the American College of Radiology in breast MRI," said Joe Borelli, president and medical director of MRI at Belfair, in an email. Borelli also serves as an accreditation reviewer for ACR and helped develop the organization's 1-year-old breast MRI accreditation program.

MRI at Belfair has been offering breast MRI for cancer detection since 2005.

Indeed, practitioners are not legally required to be accredited to offer breast MRI, said Shawn Farley, spokesman for The American College of Radiology, which is a professional society focused on patient health and advancing the science of radiology.

But Farley said getting accredited ensures patients benefit from the highest standards of the field. Those higher standards include specific education and training for doctors, requirements that the machines be checked regularly and that the technical staff is certified.

"If the facility is not accredited, there is no guarantee all those steps have been taken," said Farley on Friday.

He also said the demand for breast MRI is likely to grow.

"It's definitely forward-looking," said Farley. "Studies have shown for certain groups, particularly high risk (groups), it may be useful as an adjunct for mammography - not to replace it but to augment it. So we do expect there probably will be more of a demand."

The state of Georgia has four accredited breast MRI providers, while South Carolina has only two.

Farley said he did not know how many facilities were offering breast MRI without accreditation.

Starting in January, federal law will require breast MRI facilities that operate outside a hospital to become accredited in order to receive Medicare reimbursements.

MRI at Belfair's accreditation may also be, at least in effect, a strategic move in its favor. That's considering the Bluffton facility's ongoing legal tussle with its Jasper County competitor, Coastal Carolina Hospital, located about 14 miles away in Hardeeville.

Last month the S.C. Court of Appeals affirmed a decision by the S.C. Administrative Law Court that favored the Jasper County hospital's use of the diagnostic scanning technology, against the objections of MRI at Belfair.

The court noted that Coastal Carolina was open 24 hours a day every day of the week, while mobile units and free-standing MRI providers, such as Belfair, offered patients more restricted hours of service.

MRI stands for "magnetic resonance imaging," and allows doctors to analyze conditions of the spine, brain, and other areas.

Since the Aug. 17 legal decision, MRI at Belfair has asked the state Court of Appeals to reconsider its decision and is waiting for the court's response.

Reach Sarita Chourey at sarita.chourey@morris.com or 803-727-4257

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